Unlike its first playoff game, the Wellesley girls basketball team couldn't combat a lack of scoring, and eventually fell to Mansfield.

By Tommy Cassell @tommycassell44

When it came down to it, the Wellesley girls basketball team just couldn’t find the bottom of the basket.

Sophomore guard Gianna Palli had 14 points off the bench but fourth-seeded Wellesley fell, 40-31, to top-seeded Mansfield in the Division 1 South semifinals at Massasoit Community College in Brockton on Tuesday.

Mansfield (20-2) will face either No. 6 Newton South or No. 7 Braintree in the sectional final game at Taunton High on Friday.

Wellesley finishes its season with an 18-4 record.

“We just had some uncharacteristic zone offense tonight,” Wellesley coach Glen Magpiong said. “But I’m very proud of the way the girls responded in the second half.”

Following a Div. 1 South quarterfinal win over Marshfield last week, when Wellesley scored only 13 points in the first half but came back to win by double-digits, the Raiders couldn’t quite pull out the same type of second-half magic when Wellesley went into halftime trailing 22-13 to the Hornets on Tuesday.

Part of it was because Mansfield’s 2-3 defensive zone forced more than 15 Wellesley turnovers.

“When you turn the ball over you’re not getting shots up,” said Magpiong.

The Raiders were able to cut the Hornets’ lead to four points, following a 3-point play from senior Leo Sperling, in the third quarter. Still, Mansfield extended its lead to seven at multiple points in the fourth quarter.

Wellesley was able to cut the deficit to five at 31-26 with 4:01 left, and then 33-28 with 1:49 remaining, but Mansfield didn’t allow the Raiders closer than that and went on to win by nine.

“It was there, it was there and it was at the time that we were charging,” Magpiong said of his team’s last-minute chances. “It’s just one of those things. Like baseball, it’s a game of inches I guess.”

Wellesley encountered scoring issues in the first half of the Raiders’ first round win over Marshfield. Unlike Tuesday, however, Wellesley recovered in the second half to score 32 points and win by 13.

Wellesley was hoping to make a sectional title game for the first time in Magpiong’s three-year tenure with the Raiders. The Raiders lost in the semifinals last year and suffered a first round defeat in 2015.

Still, Magpiong was proud of what his players accomplished this season, especially in the second half of the year when the team started to really gel together.

“I would characterize (the season) as the hills of Texas,” Magpiong said. “There were peaks, there were valleys, and there were peaks and there were valleys. Despite not scoring as many points against Mansfield as we wanted, we really ended on a peak and I told the girls in the locker room ‘despite the peaks and valleys, we really enjoyed working with (you) over the past two weeks’.

“…. At the end of the day, we had fun. When they were focused, they were fun to be around.”

— Tommy Cassell can be reached at 508-626-4405 or tcassell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @tommycassell44.